Anna Cearley
The San Diego Union - Tribune
Nov 1, 1997. pg. B.1
DEL MAR -- Robert Harriman, superintendent of the Del Mar Union District, has been put on administrative paid leave, while other district officials are juggling the duties of the district's top administrative job.
Trustees ordered the leave Oct. 18 following a closed school- board meeting, board president Jeanne Waite confirmed yesterday. Trustees held a follow-up meeting Tuesday to discuss the superintendent's evaluation, according to Virginia Pearson, Harriman's attorney.
Pearson said she had been asking the school board, through its attorney, for information this week and was promised a written response, which had not arrived by late yesterday.
"We are in the dark about as much as you are," said Pearson. Harriman, who has headed the district for the past 13 years, was unavailable for comment last night.
Waite, citing confidentiality for personnel matters, said she could not say what prompted the decision to place Harriman on leave.
She would not comment on how long the paid leave might last, or whether someone will be be named interim superintendent.
"It's an indefinite leave term," she said.
Waite said that board members enacted the leave and then notified the superintendent, who was not present during the vote. "We are making every effort to keep things moving along in the district," she said. "The three principals and the business manager and the woman in charge of special education have all strongly stepped up to the plate to help during this time."
In August, after 20 months of talks, the three-school, 1,600- student district reached an agreement with the city of San Diego to build an elementary school in Carmel Valley. The agreement, which Harriman was active in crafting, ended months of often heated debate between educators and city officials.
The breakthrough came in the form of a $1.8 million loan from the Del Mar school system to the city of San Diego, whose leaders said they lacked sufficient funds for the city's share of the work. Del Mar officials believe the $6.2 million elementary school can open at the start of the 1998-99 academic year. The school will be in a rapidly growing section of Carmel Valley off state Route 56.
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